Dean Jones and the Felice Brothers Play Rock Paper Scissors

Those yelps of delight you might have heard from parts of the Kindie Twitterverse last week were from some folks getting their hands on the latest album from Dean Jones, member of the great kindie collective Dog On Fleas. It's called Rock Paper Scissors and it features The Felice Brothers (returning the favor to Jones, who sometimes plays horn with the band) on a number of tracks, along with a bunch of other guest artists such as Uncle Rock.

Early spins of the album reveal a disk that is messy in all the right ways; it features Dean playing a bunch of instruments, including the car-horn o-phone -- how could it not be? It'll be for sale any day now, so stay tuned... Tracklisting below...
1 Hail! Hail! the Gang’s All Here!
2 Rock Paper Scissors
3 Butterfingers
4 Sing Like a Sparrow
5 Mama Said No
6 Surprise
7 Roncando (w/ Uncle Rock)
8 Throw on the Charm
9 Poison Ivy
10 Isthmus be the Pirate Waltz
11 Lucky (w/ Amy Poux)
12 Flat Tire
13 Frenzy
14 Miss Mary Jane
15 Baby in My Pocket
16 Lefty Loosey/Righty Tighty
17 Tomorrow
18 The Littlest Song

New Dog on Fleas Music, Video (With Bonus Elizabeth Mitchell!)

My Dog on Fleas cup runneth over this evening.

First, head on over to the band's Facebook page to give their new bonus track "Love" a spin. The word "love" makes up maybe 80% of the total lyrics, so it'll probably fit well on your kid's mix CDs they're making for their 2nd grade class for Valentine's Day. (What, they're not making mix CDs?)

Second, head on over to Jitterbug to watch a new video for "Cranberry Sauce Flotilla", the super-fun title track from the album of the same name. Lots of men in hats. But not Men In Hats.

Finally, I told you about the High Meadow Songs album about a year ago, and in January 2008, there was a benefit concert.

Luckily, someone captured Dog on Fleas, Elizabeth Mitchell, and Daniel Littleton doing "Jenny Jenkins" live. (Sadly, it took me a year to discover it.) Great version.

Review: Beautiful World - Dog on Fleas

Well, there's certainly no flies on New York's Dog on Fleas. Flies on fleas? Huh? What I mean by that is that their last album, When I Get Little, was a fabulous little piece of sun-kissed Dan Zanes-ian roots-pop, and it would have been very easy for the band to turn out another collection of free-range music.

But for whatever reason (including the departure of a couple band members to other things), the band has taken a somewhat different approach on this new CD. There's a lot of experimentation here, even more than you'd expect from a Dog on Fleas disk. Some of it sounds great -- "I Love Your Accent" is little more than the song title sung in falsetto and people reciting where they're from (from around the world), but it's lots of fun and very global in its worldview, obviously. "Unbirthday" is a raucous, occasionally distorted celebration of each person's other 364 days of the year. I was much less enthused by "Star Tonight" and "Do You Wanna Know My New Dance Step?," two funky tunes that didn't have that dancing spark Fleas tunes often have. My general feeling is that the second half of the album is less "experimental" and will be more familiar to long-time listeners.

There are a number of guest musicians on the album. Lorette Velvette takes lead vocals on the storytelling "Lima Bean," with Uncle Rock providing backup assistance. Frances England joins with Pia Ruissi-Besates on the gorgeous and mellow album-closer "Babies." (The song would have fit perfectly on the band's Dean Jones' lullaby(-ish) album Napper's Delight.)

As with most Dog on Fleas tunes, the 35-minute album doesn't quite have an age range, but let's say it's most appropriate for ages 3 through 9. You can hear samples at the album's CD Baby page.

Beautiful World isn't as fun as their last album, When I Get Little, and if you're new to the band, I'd recommend starting there first. And if you're a huge fan of that CD, it may take a while to get used to the new sounds here. But there are a lot of good songs and the lyrics are filled with love for the world and its inhabitants. There are many worse ways to spend 35 minutes dancing with your kids. Recommended.

New Album From Dog On Fleas On Its Way...

While we're talking about new albums on their way, heads up for a new release from the fine folks in New York's Dog On Fleas. Dean Jones from the band mentioned to me that the band has "shrunk and changed flavors," indicating that a couple long time members (Debbie Lan and David Levine) have moved on and the sound has changed a little bit.

But the new album, scheduled for a mid-November-ish release, is filled as always with lots of different instruments and lots of different friends, including Frances England, Uncle Rock, and Lorette Velvette.

Here's the tracklist along with the lovely cover art which, as always, is by Cindy Hoose.

1 Beautiful World
2 Star Tonight
3 Do You Wanna Know My New Dance Step?
4 Water Planet
5 Beach Song
6 Dumpling
7 Lima Bean
8 Crawl To Your Mother
9 Where Would You Fly?
10 I Love Your Accent
11 Unbirthday
12 Sittin’ In The Field
13 Balloon Man
14 Birds Of A Feather
15 Babies

Review in Brief: High Meadow Songs - Various Artists

High Meadow Songs is a collection of tracks from artists in New York's Hudson Valley to benefit High Meadow Arts, a local non-profit providing arts education for children and families.

When getting a bunch of local musicians together for a benefit album, it doesn't hurt if your definition of "local musicians" includes Elizabeth Mitchell, Dog on Fleas, and Medeski, Martin & Wood. And if the CD just consisted of the tracks from those artists or collaborators, you'd have a pretty nifty 9-track album. Dog on Fleas turn in a very Fleas-ian (and local) "Buffalo Gals" and sound a bit like The Band on "Jenny Jenkins." Mitchell covers Jane Siberry's sweet "When Spring Comes," while MMW offer their reworking of "All Around the Kitchen" (accented with kids' voices) from their upcoming Let's Go Everywhere CD.

Luckily there are a number of other tracks worth it for someone who's not from the area -- for example, Rebecca Coupe Franks & Her Groovemobile offer an original jazzy instrumental, "Ella Skye," and Abby Hollander and a whole bunch of High Meadow students perform Mark Morgenstern's story-in-song "Hudson River Girl." The album isn't so much an album of "kids music" as much as it is an album of kid-friendly folk music, "folk" defined rather broadly, as the album also includes a song from a musical comedy based on Beowulf ("True True Friend") and a couple of tracks from drummers Fode Sissoko and Toby Stover. As with any benefit album, especially a 65-minute one such as this one, the quality (or interest) of the tracks is not uniformly high, but the high points outweigh the rest.

You can hear the first three tracks in their entirety here or listen to samples at the album's CDBaby page. It's probably most appropriate for kids ages 5 and up. High Meadow Songs will appeal most to fans of Dog on Fleas and Elizabeth Mitchell, but I think any listener (or family) who's a fan of folk music will find many pleasures here. It's a testament to one particular community's creative vibrancy. Recommended.